in political science, Politics, US History 1,119 Words

Oh, Donald, what have you done?

Last week I wrote a blog post for today. As a result of what Trump did on Saturday, though, it no longer seemed appropriate to use it. I’ll save it for another day, because it is about one of the stories in my new book, Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories.

I have mentioned or alluded to Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro before.

Flag of Venezuela
Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Unsplash

On August 28, 2025 in my blog, Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, I wrote that Trump was quietly stationing U.S. Navy Aegis guided-missile destroyers and other military ships and planes off the coast of Venezuela. I wrote, “The official White House explanation is that it is an anti-illegal drug operation, but it is no secret that Trump wants to overthrow the Maduro regime.”

On December 10, 2025, in my blog, Trump’s National Security Strategy – The Western Hemisphere, I gave some details of Trump’s November 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) and the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. Among other things, it talked about our use of lethal force and how American businesses would benefit. The NSS went so far as to state that any U.S. Government employee who interacts with countries in the Western Hemisphere must understand that it is “part of their job to help American companies compete and succeed.”

Now that Trump claims the U.S. will “run Venezuela” and we will “take back our oil,” I guess Trump and U.S. oil companies will be the beneficiaries of Saturday’s military action.

On December 31, 2025 in my A look back at 2025 blog post, I listed a few of  the things Trump did last year. One of my paragraphs read as follows: “He thinks he has the right to oust the dictator in a South American nation because that country sits on a lot of oil. He claims Venezuelans are bringing massive amounts of illegal drugs to the U.S. in those tiny boats. In his mind, though, it is easier to claim they’re transporting drugs and obliterate all the evidence along with the people in the boats.”

What Trump did in the wee hours on Saturday morning gives Putin the greenlight to take Ukraine and other European countries. It gives Xi the greenlight to take Taiwan.

Trump has left the United States without a moral leg to stand on when any other dictator in the world decides to go off half-cocked and overthrow a government or a leader they don’t like.

Trump says Maduro is a “bad person.” Just because a country has a “bad person” in charge does not give the United States or any other country the right to overthrow that person and their regime. After all, most of us think Donald Trump is a “bad person.”

The United States has overthrown foreign leaders before. It has never gone well. It goes against the Constitution of the United States of America. It overrides the authority of the U.S. Congress when a U.S. President launches a military attack on another country.

This is not rocket science; it’s just political science. It is the very foundation of our nation. It is not difficult to understand for those of us who have lived here for seven decades. We learned the tenets of American democracy from birth in our homes and at school in our formative years. We have continued to learn it throughout our lives just by having the privilege of being American citizens.

It is beyond unfortunate that we now have a U.S. President who was either never taught those things or has chosen to ignore them. He thumbs his nose at the law and those of us who love America. He believes he is above the law, and those of us who obey the law are “losers.”

And that, my friends, is how we arrived at Saturday morning, January 3, 2026.

Maduro and his wife are now being held in a prison in New York City. It is said that they will be charged with running illegal drugs to the United States.

This is all smoke and mirrors by the U.S. President, for just a few weeks ago he pardoned the former leader of Honduras for his running of drugs to the United States. So why spend an estimated $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer money to overthrow Maduro? And he is just getting started. The hard work comes after the overthrow, especially when you have no plan and the American people are not behind you.

In Trump World, it all depends on who you are and what Trump can get out of you.

The American people don’t want to run Venezuela. We don’t want to make Canada our 51st state. We don’t want to steal Greenland from Denmark. We don’t want a $400 million ballroom at the White House. We don’t want Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. We don’t want a massive arch in Washington, DC. We don’t want masked federal officers snatching people off the streets. We don’t want Trump’s face on our money or our national park passes. We don’t want Trump’s name on anything.

Americans want affordable healthcare and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) we can trust. We want our food inspected by a reliable U.S. Department of Agriculture. We want people to make a fair wage that will enable them to reach the American Dream of home ownership. We want religion left out of our public schools. We want university professors free to teach without government interference. We want our national parks preserved and not destroyed for the sake of gas and oil exploration. We want endangered species protected from extinction. We want a country where citizens are encouraged to vote without intimidation. We want a country where we are all just Americans and minorities are not labeled “other.”

We want a U.S. Congress with the guts to stop Trump’s power grab and overreach.

We want a U.S. Supreme Court that admits the error of their ways when they ruled that a sitting U.S. President cannot be held guilty of breaking a law.

We want a President who speaks and acts from a place of intelligence and empathy – not a gutter-mouth bully. Is it too much to ask that we have a President who speaks in complete sentences? Is it too much to ask for a President who honors the U.S. Constitution? Is it too much to ask for a President who does not call our citizens vicious names?

Janet

P.S. Don’t forget the brave people of Ukraine.

24 thoughts on “Oh, Donald, what have you done?”

  1. As you know Janet, I am no fan of Trump and I have joined you in citing his wrongs. However, when one talks about morality (ethics), international law, and constitutional rights, one must exclude from the list that, because our respect for the above mentioned, dictator, usurpers to the presidency of a nation and international criminals and communists. The communists have always used our sense of freedom and respect for the letter of the law, as a way to get what they want, which is people in free countries to defend them. Venezuela was being run by a squad of narcotrafficking criminals and a man who took over power, not legitimately elected, but by force. He has incarcerated, exiled and killed many simply because of their beliefs. He had to go and good riddance. If Trump was motivated by Venezuela’s oil reserved, it is fine with me, at least that oil will not fall into the hands of Putin or Xi. In conclusion, I believe that when dealing with criminals one must realise that we are not equal. We treat our equals with dignity and according to the rule of law, criminals, especially communists, must be dealt with differently. And although I am not a fan of Trump, I have to say that the operation was brilliant (from a military point of view) and the motivation was just. I have seen the results of a communist dictatorship and I have learned much from my time in Miami living among those forced into exile by communism. I only hope that Trump finishes the job in Venezuela and that the Venezuelan people can celebrate elections and continue to be a democratic and free country. It is time to clean house in Latin America. We cannot continue to call “President” to dictators and we cannot consider them equal to elected leaders. Thank you Janet, and I hope you understand. All the best.

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  2. This is headline news here as well. I find it deeply troubling how President Trump is beginning this year, and I had hoped he might finally abandon his destructive and dangerous approach.
    What you describe is widely discussed here: the erosion of international law, the abuse of power, and the dangerous precedent this sets.
    Even Greenland now feels vulnerable. That alone should concern us all.
    This does not feel like responsible leadership.
    Of course, he is unlikely to change course. The question is: who will stop him? That is what we have been waiting for, for far too long.

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  3. “We want a U.S. Supreme Court that admits the error of their ways when they ruled that a sitting U.S. President cannot be held guilty of breaking a law.” Imagine what precedent set for our part of the world? Disaster just!

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  4. Brilliant, Janet. You read my mind but used much better language. As a Virginian, volunteering less than two miles from where James Monroe lived, I find Trump’s Donroe corollary to the Monroe Doctrine both vain and offensive. Monroe’s term was known as the Era of Good Feelings while Trump’s is a deliberate era of misinformation and hate dissemination. Please, We the People, in this Sesquicentennial year, please vote to restore a sense of what America should mean and not what it has become.

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  5. I understand what you’re saying. Thank you for expressing your opinion and what you know from your experience. Yes, the military action was brilliant. My main concern, which I failed to express, is that Trump has no plan for today or tomorrow. He’s on a power trip and he has no knowledge of Venezuela except that it sits on vast amounts of oil. He is unable to “run” the United States. He certainly has no clue how to “run” Venezuela. The big question is, What happens next? There is no plan in place. The Administration already cannot get its answers straight over why we did it. I have no faith in the U.S. Department of Justice to deliver justice for Maduro. Just look who’s in charge of the aftermath… a bunch of clowns. It was all about “shock and awe.” I do understand the points you made, but the overreach of presidential power demonstrated by Trump is troubling and puts him in the category of dictator. He’s already saying Colombia is next. The U.S. kidnapping dictators with no plan for the next day leaves countries in the hands of lawless gangs. Time will tell how all this shakes out… all while Trump is not held responsible for his felonies. I appreciate our conversations, Francis.

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  6. It is all very concerning, Matroos. My concern, which I really did not address in my blog post, is that there is no plan in place to take Venezuela forward. There was no plan for the hours following the military action, no plan for yesterday, no plan for today, and no plan for tomorrow. Trump can’t “run” the United States well. He is clueless about “running” Venezuela. It appears the “plan” is to let Maduro’s people who are still there to continue as things were. We removed Maduro and his wife, but the rest of the Maduro regime is still in place. It is unclear what was accomplished. Yesterday on Air Force One as he returned to Washington, DC, Trump hinted that Colombia will be next and then Cuba. We, too, wait for someone to stop him. I was so glad last Wednesday night to see 2025 end, but barely 48 hours into 2026 he pulled this stunt. Will the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives take action this week? And even if they do, Trump will not be bothered. He has said, “I’m President of the United States. I can do anything I want to do.” So far, that has sadly been true.

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  7. I appreciate them too Janet. You points are well taken too. I just meant to say that we cannot play with our fair and just rules with tyrants, especially communist ones that enslave their people. I trust there will be a transition and that good men and women in Venezuela will take this opportunity ti create a new and democratic government. I would not support a US itakeover of the country, but I do applaud a transition. All the best.

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  8. Yes, Norah. When the U.S., which has been held up as the shining example of democracy and a beacon of freedom and liberty, stoops to this level, then what is to happen in fragile democracies and countries in the rest of the world? I did not expect to see this turn of events we have witnessed since January 20, 2025, in America. We don’t know what will come next. Just because the U.S. has the military capability to do what it did in Venezuela on Saturday does not mean it was the right thing to do. Maduro was a horrible dictator, but I don’t like for the U.S. President to take such an action without Congressional approval. Also, just because Maduro was removed from his country, doesn’t mean anything will change in Venezuela. The rest of his regime are still in place. As far as we know, Trump has no substantive plan for what to do next there. His saying, “We will ‘run’ Venezuela” rang hollow because he has been unable to explain how that will be done. He is doing a poor job of “running” the United States, so I don’t think he has a clue how to “run” another country of a vast geographic area and 35 million citizens. To use a word you used: disaster.

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  10. Thank you, Pat. I, too, am offended by Trump’s evil-minded hijacking of the Monroe Doctrine and forcing his name into the document. As with everything else he has done in his life, this demonstrates his ignorance of history and his arrogance. He is the poster child for White Privilege and delights in rubbing it in our faces. What a wonderful way to plunge us into the new year! Maduro was a horrible dictator, but I’m not convinced he has done any worse damage to Venezuela than Trump has done to the U.S. The long-term ramifications of the destruction of our democratic principles, our aide programs, and our standing in the world remain to be recognized. Sadly, most of them will not yet be recognized by the masses before they vote in November. We can only pray that enough of us are paying attention that some people of integrity and principles will be elected in November and that the ship can begin to be righted.

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  12. I feared 2026 would only bring more of the same of what he inflicted on us in 2025. I guess I was hoping we could at least get to Epiphany without his bombing of another country.

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  13. I agree. Venezuelans deserve to have free elections and choose their own path forward. We can only hope that happens. All the best from a cloudy North Carolina.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. From an outsiders point of view, if you don’t want the president in office, why did rhe country vote him in?

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  20. Holey moley, Kym! I’m running out of words that can be printed. Three more years of this? And we thought his first term was horrible. Little did we know how restrained he was then. We’ve got to get out the vote in November… unless he cancels the mid-term elections. Tood to hear from you again. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! And how did little ole Mint Hill become the center of the news universe the last couple of weeks? My sister and I ate at that Burger King on December 23. I swear, I think that guy took my order!!! I’m in Mint Hill several times a week, so that whole thing freaked me out!

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